First off, when we got back from Kauai a few months ago, we had our day in court.
Lester appeared, wearing that same thirty dollar suit he was wearing when he came to us with those red daisies, but it was now rumpled and he had ring around the collar.
He would not make eye contact with us in court, which was fine with me, but it was unsettling. When he passed us in the hall outside the courtroom without so much as a nod, I felt dead inside. And I felt terrible because I had empathy for the poor guy, even if our actions spoke differently.
The judge heard both our sides, very plainly, and our lawyer did his job with calm collectedness. Lester had hired some young befuddled attorney who took his case out of pity and for the experience of it, and it was easy to tell he was not in command of the law nor did he show much confidence or persuasiveness when he was making his points.
The Judge ordered Lester's house be demolished by a local contractor and he put a lien against Lester for the bill, since Lester did not have the funds to pay for it himself. The Judge gave him seven days to evacuate the property.
After the gavel came down, Lester was in tears and did not move from his seat.
The courtroom emptied but he remained.
I felt horribly empty and terrible.
June and I thought it would be best not to go to our house in Mendocino yet, because what if Lester, in the interim before his home was demolished, would decide to take his feelings out on us?
So we went to a hotel and turned on cable TV and stewed in our juices. My juices were pure guilt and I secretly resolved to cure my guilt by giving Lester something in return for his troubles which by now I felt responsible for.
In the morning I went to the bank and withdrew fifteen thousand dollars--a big sum for us in this recession--and I drove to our summer house to go make peace with Lester; to give him some seed money; a relocation fee if you will...
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